


(she is) like lightning

by captainriza



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff, Kissing, TAZ Candlenights Exchange, Temporary Character Death - The Stolen Century (The Adventure Zone), Vignettes, but also fluff? it's got it all folks, minor descriptions of blood and violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:49:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28765854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainriza/pseuds/captainriza
Summary: "He should be angry, filled with regret, but with death comes something else. Something more complicated. He welcomes death, because in it, he remembers her."A series of vignettes from stolen-century era to post-canon following Barry as he tries to find Lup, told through alternating flashbacks.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	(she is) like lightning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Qpenguin98](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qpenguin98/gifts).



**I. Now**

_“Your name is Barry Bluejeans. Your favorite color is green. You love the smell of fresh-baked bread. You are afraid of spiders. Your mother gave you a necklace for your tenth birthday and you lost it at school. You have a moon-shaped scar on the back of your neck. You are in love, and she is gone, and you have to find her. You have always loved her. You will always, always find her, in this universe and the next. You don’t remember any of this, Barry, but you can feel that what I’m saying is true. You know you’re in love the same way you know you’re alive, and that’s because I am you, Barry. I’m you before you stepped out of that machine unto life. I know all that and more. Listen to me carefully; here’s what you do.“_

The eponymous Barry listens to the coin, flips it between his index and ring fingers twice, then tries to pocket it.

He is naked, so first, he acquires pockets.

**II. Then**

“Hey, Bar,” Lup says, poking her head into the lab. Her hair is a wild mess of curls and she’s only wearing a tank top and shorts with little hearts on them. He watches her as she yawns, a slice of her midriff exposed as she stretches her arms upwards. Barry quickly averts his gaze back down to his work.

“Come in,” he says, trying hard not to stare as she bounces in and parks herself on top of the table, crossing her legs and shaking a bag in his direction suggestively. He blinks at it, confused — had she been holding that when she came in? — and takes off his glasses to rub the sleep that’s been threatening to claim him.

“What’s that?”

“Guess,” she says, bouncing a little. “No, really, guess.”

Barry sighs, tipping back in his chair. Despite himself, he can feel the cloud of his bad mood lifting in her presence—his work had gotten him nowhere, but that was just tonight. They had the better part of a year to work this time, and he wasn’t going to squander it.

“I don’t know,” he says, suppressing a yawn and resisting the urge to reach out and tuck her hair behind her ear. “Something you made?”

“Nope,” she says, shaking her head. Her curls bob up and down wildly, and she blows them out of her face in annoyance, quickly reaching up and wrapping her hand around her hair to whip it into a bun. He blinks as her neck is exposed for a tantalizing moment, then looks away again. “Even better.”

She offers him the bag, and he stares quizzically at it. He pokes it experimentally. It doesn’t move. He stares up at her, dutifully ignoring how soft her skin looks, the curve of her lips exposing her sharp teeth, oh, God—

She puts him out of his misery and carefully opens it, rolling down the sides just enough so it doesn’t expose the contents inside.

“Smell,” she says.

He shoots her a doubtful look. “I’ve fallen for that one before,” he says, shaking his head. “You really think I’d just—”

“Oh, you big baby, just smell it,” Lup says, pushing the bag up under his nose. He instinctively takes a whiff in, and — oh.

Coffee. Real coffee beans, roasted and dark, the scent heavenly in contrast to the ever-present coppery-metal smell in the lab. He closes his eyes and breathes in deep. How long has it been, he thinks, and almost tears up thinking of their home, the midnight coffeeshops and their ever-present smell noticeable even from the streets.

“Right!” Lup says with a little too much volume, clearly noticing his mood. She pulls the bag from his hand and jumps up, practically bouncing on her heels, then hops over to the sink, haphazardly grabbing for a clean beaker and filling it with water.

“Lup, it’s almost midnight,” Barry says instinctively. “Are we really going to—”

“Yes,” she says, and tosses him the bag. “Get grindin’, Barry-O, we’re making coffee.”

Barry follows her lead after a moment’s hesitation, pouring a measure of the beans into a bowl and using the bottom of a beaker to crush them into a fine dust. He focuses on his work methodically, trying desperately not to look at Lup and her cute pajamas and her cute face — oh, God, Barry, why —

He can’t stop himself.

Filled with preemptive regret, he looks up, catching a glimpse of her in his periphery. She’s whipped up a flame and is slowly boiling the water. Her tongue pokes out of her mouth in concentration as she channels her fire, the curve of her neck illuminated in the flickering light.

Barry can’t, won’t, tear his eyes away. He tells himself it’s the lab safety violation, but he knows better.

“Dope!” Lup says, flicking the beaker as it bubbles. She makes a gimme motion with her hands, and Barry comes over willingly. She pours the soft grounds in and breathes in, a smile spreading across her face as she works.

They wait, in silence, as the grounds steep, the soft bubbling and steaming lulling Barry into a trance. Next to him, Lup waits without much patience, practically radiating joy.

“This is a special moment,” she says. “We haven’t had coffee in a lifetime.”

He senses the joking in her tone, but his stomach flips regardless. He can’t help it. Thinking about her does that to him. Maybe someday, he’ll address that, but for now, all he knows is that he can’t remember what he was so upset about.

Lup carefully strains and pours the coffee into two clean beakers, the smell — oh, the smell! — and hands one to him. She cups her hands around her own leans in conspiratorially. He catches a whiff of coconut and something floral that is definitely not the coffee.

Her skin glows, the tips of her ears red from excitement. “Taste it,” she breathes, her face a little too close to his.

He doesn’t hesitate.

**III. Now**

The coin told him to cut a lock of hair and place it inside the tank. He did. Barry gives Barry a list of tasks with corresponding instructions and he scribbles them down hastily. Now, he’s outside, the fresh morning air hitting him like a jolt of electricity as he reviews his list. Eggs, cured meats, fennel, a map.

The map. There’s something about the map. The cave he left, his cave, he supposes, was filled with maps, locations circled in frantic red overlapping with strings connecting mountains to valleys. There was no sense to the madness. It didn’t feel like something he would do.

Then again, he doesn’t feel like himself. Something is missing. The coin told him what was missing, he reminds himself, and you’re going to go find it.

Still, it’s little comfort.

Barry swings by a market and buys perhaps too much produce, smiling at the shopkeep and offering her too much gold than it is worth for her wares. He packs it gently in a denim rucksack, wishes her well and consults the list. It tells him first to find a farmer on the outskirts of Phandalin.

It’s a three-day journey, but he doesn’t mind. He greets those that pass by and at night, writes poems in the dirt until he falls asleep, scraping over them in the morning with no recollection of having written them.

When he reaches Phandalin, he speaks to the farmer, who gives him directions to a cave on the outskirts. Be careful, the farmer says. It’s not safe. Barry goes willingly.

When he locates the cliffs that lead to the cave, cloaked in a fine mist, he consults the list again. It instructs him to map out the cliffs around the cave, assessing for threats or dangers, and to come back another day. For the first time, Barry questions the self that supposedly knows everything. He doesn’t know why he’s here, or why he would come back — the coin didn’t tell him enough, he realizes, frustration growing in his gut. Above that, there’s something else. Something familiar.

This cave is important, he thinks. Something is supposed to be in there.

He leaves his rucksack at the bottom of the cliffs and starts to traverse the route up to the cave, ignoring his own common sense that screams to return to the ground. It’s dangerous and craggy, and he slips several times, catching himself only in the nick of time before he pulls himself up the steep ridges.

He makes it, though, and stops just ten feet from the top to catch his breath. His heart rattles in his ribcage and he tries not to look down. He unfurls the list again, gripping it in shaking hands.

_Map out the location of the cave._

_Asess for dangers._

_Return home._

There are no other instructions. After a moment’s hesitation, Barry crumples the list in his hand and lets it float down below. He’s filled with something else now, something like determination, even through the fog of what he doesn’t know.

The person telling him what to do cannot be me, he concludes. Because I want to go into that cave.

Barry starts to climb again, hand over hand until he finally reaches the top. His fingers are bent and bleeding, but he pushes through —

He suddenly misses a handhold and goes wheeling backwards, grasping for something that isn’t there. His brain fills with static and he lets out a panicked cry as he falls through the air, feeling his lungs constrict and tears spring to his eyes as adrenaline rushes through his veins. No, no, no, no —

Mercifully, he feels nothing before it all goes black.

Then, Barry is reborn.

He floats at the bottom of the cliff, hovering over his own body, nestled in a bed of white flowers, almost peaceful if it weren’t for the blood pooling under his skull. It drips into the flowers, staining them a hideous pink.

Barry floats there until the blood stops flowing.

He should be angry, filled with regret, but with death comes something else. Something more complicated. He welcomes death, because in it, he remembers her.

Barry looks pointedly away from his broken and mangled body. Next time, he thinks. Next time, I’ll do it right.

**IV. Then**

They sit, hand in hand, on the edge of a bluff overlooking rippling sand dunes, the pale blonde illuminated by sunset reds. When he looks at Lup, her features blur slightly in the light. Her cheeks and nose are tinged with red. He silently marvels at her, thinks of luck and fate and chance and everything in between. The wind blows, and they sit in silence.

Barry eventually wriggles out from under her grip and Lup makes a soft noise of complaint before he unties his robe and places it around her shoulders. She caves into it, scrunching up into his chest and breathing against him. Her hair is soft against his skin and smells of lavender. He runs a hand through it absently and she snuggles deeper into him, her breath warm against his chest. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to remember the feeling of her before it passes.

Then, she pokes her tongue out and licks a bare strip of his wrist, breaking the moment. She cackles as he snatches his wrist away in mock disgust, and he falls into laughter. He mimes wiping his wrist on his jeans and she fake-pouts, so he pulls her into a kiss, savoring the warmth of her lips. She kisses back.

They stay like that, wrapped in each other, the wind cooling their cheeks, until Lup pulls away, an unreadable expression on her face.

“Hmmm?” he mumbles, looking up sleepily. She cups his face in her hands, then, kissing his forehead gently.

“I just…don’t want this to end,” she says, looking out over the bluff. They’re silent for a moment, watching the sand move like the ocean.

“It won’t,” Barry says, absently considering. “I mean, not really. This will end, but we won’t.” “I know, I know,” Lup says. She looks up at the sun dipping below the horizon. “This year has just been so…”

“So-so,” Barry teases, and she lightly bonks her head against his shoulder.

The year had not been so-so. It had been everything. They had found the Light easily and spent the year analyzing it at their own pace, savoring their free time and sleeping, together, in between frenzied lab sessions. Barry finally felt like he deserved her, almost seven cycles later, and Lup was never shy about affirming her own love for him. It was everything, and now they were going somewhere new.

“It’s just…intense,” Lup says, echoing his thoughts. She yawns and stretches, rolling her neck side-to-side. Instinctively, Barry puts his hands on her shoulders and squeezes, and she moans a little. He puts more pressure on her tight muscles and rubs them until she slumps against his side.

They lay on their backs, then, feet dangling over the bluff, wrapped in Barry’s cloak. One by one, stars twinkle into view, filling the lavender sky with pinpricks of light.

“That one’s a bunny,” Barry says, breaking the silence. He wrestles his arm out from under her and points at a clump of stars. She gives him a look.

“No, really,” he says, catching her hand and lifting it up. He traces the shape of ears and a tail, their fingers intertwined.

“Ohhhhhhh, I see it now,” Lup says. She gently moves his hand to the right, extending to a cluster of stars with a bright center. “That one’s a dick.”

He laughs, and pokes her in the side until she laughs back. It almost hurts to look at her like this, incandescent and beautiful under the waning light, but he looks, because somewhere, deep down, he’s afraid he’ll never get to look again.

“You’re wallowing,” Lup says. He pouts.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” she teases, kissing him gently. He relents.

“Okay, a little,” he admits, and kisses her back. “But—” he kisses her again, on the cheek — “not because of you.”

“Well, obviously,” she says, blowing her hair up out of her face. “I’m amazing.” “You are,” he says, softly, and pulls her into another kiss. She laughs, then, soft and light. He pulls away.

“I love you,” he says seriously, and she tilts her head, reading the emotion in his eyes.

“I love you too, babe,” she says, and he stores that inside, somewhere deep. It fulfills him.

**V. Now**

Barry watches his body until the sun sets, still and lifeless at the bottom of the cliff. His arms are twisted unnaturally, so it looks as if he’s reaching for something just out of his grasp.

Ironic.

Barry sighs. His hands float in front of him, tendrils of fire and something darker. He casts a quick enchantment so his body won’t be found rotting, then staggers back to his cave and starts anew.

He rifles through his maps, casting some aside in frustration until they litter the floor. He passes over bad poetry and drawings without faces until he locates the right map.

He reaches for a quill, forgetting too quickly his non-corporeal form, and forgoes it for blasting instead. He holds up the singed paper, Wave Echo stricken from its topography. Too dangerous, clearly. Now he’ll have to wait months to try again.

Damn. Damn, damn, damn.

If it takes months, then it takes months. He knew this when he set out, and he hasn’t given up yet. Barry repeats it in his head until he believes it. Time passes like mud, but it passes, and he fills it with deals and old friends, both keeping them out of his way and using them to push his way forward.

Every time, he has to remind himself that they don’t know her. It breaks him every time. He intends to make good on his promises, but that takes months of fastidious searching, avoiding detection long enough to keep pushing.

One day, in the middle of a harsh winter storm, the machine beeps, and the breath he does not contain catches in a throat he does not have.

He spares it a glance, then floats over a drafting table with a shiny metal object placed delicately on top. He casts a quick incantation and the energy zips through the room. He leans in close and begins to speak.

“Your name is Barry Bluejeans.”

**V. Then**

Barry watches the Starblaster become a speck in the distance, neatly evading the Hunger to disappear into the stars. Relief floods through him at the same time panic sets in, his impulses firing to run, leave, get out.

Running isn’t an option. They’re gone, and he will be dead in mere moments.

Just then, the Hunger senses his distraction and strikes. A tendril of energy comes soaring up behind his neck and, just moments too late he sees it coming. It’s just enough time to know, but not enough to move. He’s frozen to the spot, defenseless. As a last act, he closes his eyes.

When he is not dead a moment later, he cracks them back open. Heat, literal heat, floods his cheeks. Lup is suddenly beside him, open flames in each of her palms reflecting the one in her eyes as she encircles them both in protective fire.

“Couldn’t let you die alone, babe,” she says, extinguishing the flame for a moment and gripping his hand reassuringly.

A roar comes from the Hunger and they both start, falling in back to back as black tendrils circle them. Lup crushes them with bolts of flame, but they’re too fast and too many, and they are only getting closer. The sound drowns out everything, a hideous roar that matches the pitch of the sky.

Barry looks in vain for the Starblaster, but it’s gone, vanished behind the clouds, hopefully far, far away. He looks back at Lup, so full of fight and flame, and feels like he’s been struck by lightning again. That’s what being near her is like, he muses. Like lightning, and you are the tree she splits in two.

A tendril takes a swipe at him and connects. His arm begins to bleed, pain radiating upwards from the cut. He staggers back, blasting the tendril, hard. It retreats, but more fill its place, and Barry curses under his breath. He knows what is going to happen. They both do.

“What if this is the last one?” Barry yells over the deafening roar. “What if we don’t regenerate?”

For a moment, she doesn’t say anything, her concentration an unbroken line between her and the Hunger. Then, the protective circle around them falls and her palms extinguish. She gives him one last look just as the sound enveloping them becomes deafening.

“Then I love you,” Lup shouts, just barely heard. Their world goes black.

**VI. Now**

Finally. Finally. Finally.

This was it. This was her. All his memories crash around in his skull like waves throwing broken glass upon the shore, piercing him with I love you’s left unreturned and promises broken.

That wouldn’t matter in mere moments. She existed and so did he, and for a single moment he wishes desperately that he could do it all over again, find her first and be there for her.

The umbrella breaks.

**VII. After**

“Hey, babe,” Lup says, lazily flicking a hand at Barry. It lands on his cheek, and she drags it down his chin in an exaggerated motion, until he laughs and pushes her off.

“Baaaa-abe,” Lup sings, tossing her feet into his lap and sprawling backwards over the loveseat they’re sharing — or, at least, had been sharing, until Lup bullied her way into three-quarters of the pillows and one hundred percent of the blankets.

“Yes?” Barry says, adjusting his glasses and tickling her foot. She pulls it back with a squeal, and he laughs again. He reaches for her foot again and she squirms away, slapping at his hands until he withdraws them. 

“Ye-es?” Barry repeats, pulling her into his lap and wrapping his arms around her. She collapses into him and smiles up at him mischievously.

“Hi,” she says, monotone, and he bursts into laughter again, smacking his book against her shins.

“I’m trying to read!” he says, not really meaning it, and she bursts into laughter.

“I’m more important,” Lup says, when she regains her bearing, her ears twitching as she suppresses a smile and tries to look haughty.

“Not more important than post-disaster economics,” Barry says, and Lup smacks him in the shin.

“Ow!” Barry complains, but nestles her in closer and pulls the book around s so she can see it, too. They stay like that for a while, with Barry reading out snippets he finds interesting and Lup loudly intoning that she finds them boring, until Lup tips her head back with a look that tells him to stop reading and kiss her already.

He does, willingly.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a gift for the 2021 candlenights exchange for @qpenguin98, who enjoys blupjeans and hurt/comfort and fluff, etc. I hope this hits the spot! Your work is amazing as well so I hope I lived up to it. 
> 
> find me @wildecrow on tumblr :)


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